And go I did, in the first hansom I could find—but not straight to Scotland Yard. I stopped the cab in Picadilly on the way.
Old Raffles opened his own door to me. I cannot remember finding him fresher, more immaculate, more delightful to behold in every way. Could I paint a picture of Raffles with something other than my pen, it would be as I saw him that bright March morning, at his open door in the Albany, a trim, slim figure in matutinal gray, cool and gay and breezy as incarnate spring.
"What on earth did you do it for?" I asked within.
"It was the only solution," he answered, handing me the cigarettes. "I saw it the moment I got outside."
"I don't see it yet."
"Why should a burglar call an innocent gentleman away from home?"
"That's what we couldn't make out."
"I tell you I got it directly I had left you. He called you away in order to burgle you too, of course!"
And Raffles stood smiling upon me in all his incomparable radiance and audacity.
"But why me?" I asked. "Why on earth should he burgle me?"